As a business entrepreneur, I always look for new opportunities to expand our business ‘” both to increase customer base and revenue opportunities. I had started my business in Australia before I moved to Canada.

Canada has many advantages in terms of business, it is a very open-minded business culture, it is less conservative, although, probably not as active as US enterprises; and best of all, Canada is a multicultural society with very high degree of racial integration; this means, it is very easy to develop international opportunities.

Here are 10 strategies that I have gathered from other successful Canadian businesses and also from personal experience:

1. Look beyond Canada

With USA next door, Canada has a natural strategic advantage than other markets. When we were in Australia, it was very difficult to discuss opportunities with US clients due to the time-difference. Furthermore, the Canadian and US business cultures are very similar, you will see a lot of Canadian businesses have majority of their clients in the US.

2. Source products and goods from USA

This is the 2nd strategy, US is the world’s most affordable market in the world in many areas. If you see an opportunity, why not bring them into Canada and sell them here? This basically means operating an importing business in Canada, lots of people are doing it already and very successfully.

3. A Canadian business in USA

This is quite an interesting model I have learnt when I crossed the border a few weeks ago. A lot of businesses near the border are operated by Canadians; they set up simple businesses like personal shopping, delivery from USA to Canadian clients. Many Canadians prefer to deal with Canadians in the US; so you can use this psychology to make a business if you are in the US.

2. Internet is a very good strategy

Similar to the customers in the US, Canada has a very advanced Internet / e-commerce industry. It is one of the fastest growing industry in Canada at moment. Canadian customers are also amongst the world’s highest consumers willing to shop on Internet as well.

3. Social Media  amp; Online AD

On the same point again ‘” you can see Canadian businesses are expanding rapidly in terms of social media marketing  amp; online advertising. There has been a large number of Internet advertising companies emerging, both small and medium sized companies; this is certainly where the advertising money is at moment in Canada.

4. Multilingual Websites

Canada is a multilingual society, with English  amp; French as its official languages. Other popular languages used in Canada include Chinese, Hindi and Arabic. By having your website in different languages, you can open up new opportunities and reach the fast growing ethnic markets in Canada. The same principal is evident in the United States, where multilingual websites (eg. English-Spanish-Chinese) have attracted significant new businesses.